I’m a diehard Samsung user, but the new Moto Razr+ has me questioning my allegiance

I’m a Samsung fan. I’ve written enough Samsung-centric content in my time here for that statement not to surprise anyone, but I’ve grown to realize in the last year that I’m also a Motorola fan. I loved their phones in the early 2010s, and recently, I rediscovered that love with the 2023 Moto Razr+, or the Razr 40 Ultra as it’s called here in Europe.

Sure, there are some big questions concerning software updates, but when I compared the Razr+ to Samsung’s Z Flip 5, I preferred it. In fact, over the last few months, I’ve found myself pulled between the Razr+ (2023) and my Galaxy S24 Ultra, often swapping sims into the former each weekend. Now, the 2024 Razr+ is here, and its improvements might be enough to make me use it long-term over my Ultra.

Hinge and build-quality

No more wobbles

The hinge is one of the most important parts of any foldable, and the one found on last year’s Razr+ wasn’t great. It couldn’t hold many angles, and the hinge movement felt, for want of a better word, lumpy. When you opened or closed it, it felt like the hinge would momentarily catch onto something, so you’d need to push it harder. When closed, the two halves wobble, making it feel cheap, even though the rest of the phone felt expensive.

Based on what I’ve heard from colleagues who have used the new Razr+, the new hinge fixes all of this. Moto focused on making it easier to open one-handed and made the hinge smaller. It’s far sturdier than before.

Perfect cover screen

Now fingerprint-free

The 2023 Razr+ has a larger screen than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, but there was less usable space. The Razr’s display was technically larger because it drops between the cameras, but the real usable space above those cameras was smaller than the Flip 5 due to the larger hinge.

As previously mentioned, the new hinge on the 2024 Razr+ is smaller, meaning the screen has been pushed into that space. It’s hard to believe this cover screen now measures four inches, the same size as the iPhone 5, just in a different form factor.

My other biggest issue was how reflective the cover screen on the old Razr+ was. It attracted fingerprints like nothing else and had an almost mirror finish. The 2024 Razr+ rectifies this, too, so it fights reflections and fingerprints better and gets brighter, too. In fact, the cover screen is almost as bright as my S24 Ultra, and the inner screen is even brighter.

Amazingly, this square 1080p display is now 165Hz to match the internal screen, which is definitely overkill, but I can’t wait to try it.

Moto has also added, at long last, a true always-on display. The “peek display” the old Razr has, an evolution of what was introduced on the Moto X, is fantastic, but it lacked always-on functionality, and now it’s here.

On top of that, Moto also added something called desk display — place the phone down slightly unfolded in “tent” mode, and it’ll use that new always-on display to become a desk clock, much like the standby feature iOS adopted last year.

Lights, camera, decent photos?

(Hopefully) less low-light blur

As someone who has used every Galaxy S Ultra phone, I’m no stranger to shutter lag and blurry photos indoors or in low light. The 2023 Razr+ took that to the extreme, though, rendering the cameras almost entirely unusable in anything but perfect lighting. The new Razr+ has stepped up with dual 50MP shooters, a wide lens, and a 2X telephoto.

Of course, we’ll need more time with the phone to truly judge the quality, but based on what I’ve seen in the handful of YouTube videos that already exist, and the confidence Moto had when talking about them, I’m expecting big things this year. I don’t need the cameras to be perfect, since I still have my S24 Ultra for the times I want to get creative, but I’d like the Razr to be at least capable of capturing memories.

The wait begins

Time goes by so slowly

It’ll be about a month before I finally get my hands on the 2024 Moto Razr+, and I’m looking forward to it a lot more than I expected. Motorola has addressed almost all of my concerns this year, and I think I’ll use this thing a lot.

I obviously love my S24 Ultra; a flip foldable isn’t going to do everything the S24 can, and it certainly won’t have an S Pen, but it’ll be more comfortable to hold, fit in my pockets, and be more flexible. All that’s left is for Motorola to fix its software update practices, and I hope that’s something it does sooner rather than later.